The Heavenly Bodies in the Creation

Note: Creation Moments exists to provide biblically sound materials to the Church in the area of Bible and science relationships. This Bible study may be reproduced for group use.

The sun, moon, stars, and possibly other heavenly bodies are mentioned very often in Scripture. Our purpose in this Bible study will be to examine the place of these objects in the creation.

Read Genesis 15:5. Here we have God's promise to Abraham that he would be able to number his descendants only if he could number all the stars in the sky. Even in our modern day and age, all the stars cannot be counted and new ones are being discovered all the time. This important promise is also repeated in Genesis 22:17 and 26:4. Who is the center of this promise?

Read Numbers 24:17. Again, the center of this promise, the star spoken of here, is the promised Messiah, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the living, beating heart of all of Scripture which has been given to make us wise unto salvation. But this does not mean, therefore, that the factuality or historicity of other subjects which Scripture talks about, and which we can verify independently of Scripture, are not important. The truthfulness of all subjects as they are represented in Scripture is made all the more important because of their association with the Savior! (Leave it to the devil to convince people to believe things just the opposite of what they really are in order to ultimately take away saving faith in Christ.)

Read Deuteronomy 4:19. Here God's people are warned against making gods out of the heavenly bodies or worshipping them. Such worship would include any way in which we might give the glory, honor, or attention due to God to these creations which He has made. Man has also found other ways to misuse even the heavenly bodies. Read Isaiah 47:13. Here the fact that astrology is an alternate faith to faith in God through Jesus Christ is made very clear. Yet astrology continues to grow in popularity. Can we conclude from this verse, read within its context, that Christians should have nothing to do with the practice of astrology?

Read Job 25:5. This may, at first, seem to be a strange statement. But now read Romans 8: 19-22. Here we have a fuller explanation. Man's fall into sin subjected the whole creation to the negative results of sin. This also includes the stars. What this means is that no matter how far we can get from earth, we will continue to find the effects of our sin, and we will continue to be subject to sin, death and the devil, and in need of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Who is our only escape from the decay which is not only in this world, but in the whole creation. This also means that as we study the phenomena and objects of space we can expect to find the same physical results of sin that we do on earth. But as we see here, we should never forget that the effects of the forgiving love of Christ extends to all of the creation.

Footnotes:

Photo: Courtesy of George Bannister. (CC BY 2.0)

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